Biovillage approach represents the greening of
development

Selvi Alagappan rises early each day to tend to her
small patch of crossandra and jasmine flowers in the rural
Indian village of Mangalam, in the Union of Pondicherry.
These and the mushrooms she cultivates in a nearby shack
bring in a monthly income that, while still below the
poverty line, keeps her large family from going hungry.

Two years ago, however, starvation was very much a
reality for Selvi and her family. But like many other
participants of the Biovillage Project, a collaborative
development programme described by its authors as
"pro-nature, pro-women, pro-poor", Selvi was given the tools
and technical assistance to increase her household income
and get her back on her feet again.

The project is run by the M.S. Swaminathan Research
Foundation, a local non-governmental organization in
Chennai, with funding and technical assistance from the
Government of India and international agencies including
FAO, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The
project began in 1992 with 42 participants in three
villages. It now operates in 19 villages with a team of 24
project specialists.

"Biovillager"
Rani Nagappa feeds her chickens: over 80 percent of
the project participants are women

Although still poor, in a new FAO-funded video by Indian
journalist Vaiju Naravane, Selvi explains how her life, and
that of her family, has changed for the better. "You cannot
imagine the state we were in two years ago," said Selvi.
"For me it was a question of starting something here or just
dying. We have now begun to look with hope to our children's
future."

What makes the Biovillage Project different from
contemporary development pathways, said Dr M.S. Swaminathan,
the foundation's chairman, is its embrace of job-led
economic growth rooted in the principles of ecology, equity,
energy efficiency and employment generation.

"Contemporary development pathways are associated with
four distressing features: a widening rich-poor divide in
per caput income, damage to the basic life support systems
of land, water, the atmosphere, forests and bio-diversity,
jobless economic growth and a growing feminization of
poverty," he said.

"The Biovillage model for rural development provides an
alternative as it pays concurrent attention to natural
resource conservation, productivity improvement and poverty
eradication."

Selvi's practice of using the straw that has served as
the growth medium for her mushrooms as a natural fertilizer
for her jasmine plot is one such example of the ecologically
efficient techniques that are being passed down through the
Biovillage Project.

Because of its long tradition of working with small-scale
enterprises and expertise in food processing and marketing,
FAO was approached by the Foundation to participate in the
project. According to FAO's Representative for India and
Bhutan Peter Rosenegger, the project has made considerable
progress in technology transfer and the reduction of poverty
and is one that follows the example of the Special
Programme for Food Security (SPFS). "The project follows
the FAO strategy of promoting sustainable agricultural
development, improved nutrition and food security, and it
also ensures women's participation," said Rosenegger.

Among the many forms of technical assistance that FAO
provides to the Biovillage Project are:

development of craft industries that may find a
market within the tourist trade;

provision of technical 'how to' guides, mainly
composed of illustrations with text in local languages
and English.

While those like Selvi Alagappan have taken considerable
strides toward improving their livelihood, there remains
much work to be done to ensure their continued development,
warned Swaminathan. "Development history is littered with
the ruins of well-intentioned projects that proved
unsustainable once outside funding was removed. Ultimately,
the market must take over as the engine of development with
a steady demand for the product," he said.

Technical assistance from organizations such as FAO will
help to turn agricultural production in the project villages
into a profitmaking enterprise once it starts expanding. "We
want FAO involved in the future, to make mushroom production
economically sustainable once it starts expanding, for
example," said Swaminathan. "It is one thing to market 10
kilograms of mushrooms, quite another thing to market a
tonne of such a perishable commodity." An FAO technical
expert is scheduled to visit the project to help with new
marketing ideas.

Swaminathan continued: "We have a vision of exporting to
Malaysia, which mostly produces plantation crops, and to
Singapore. FAO, and especially its Commodities
and Trade Division has all the expertise to help us do
that."